


Be the Truth Unsaid

by sarahcakes613



Series: The Cohen Files [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bucky Barnes-centric, F/M, Inner Dialogue, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 10:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16261913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahcakes613/pseuds/sarahcakes613
Summary: Someone keeps breaking into his apartment, and it brings up memories long forgotten.Entirely focused on Bucky, not a whole lot of the actual ship happening here, so caveat lector.





	Be the Truth Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> For my beloved KimJ, who sends me messages in the middle of the night so I can cry over BuckyNat with her.

 

_By the rivers dark_   
_Where I could not see_   
_Who was waiting there_   
_Who was hunting me._

By the Rivers Dark – Leonard Cohen

 

The first time his apartment is broken into is also the first time he’s left his apartment in the month he’s been there.

He’s forced out by hunger and an empty pantry, and it takes him almost an hour just to talk himself out the door and another hour to talk himself into the grocery store, and then two hours to buy food, because there are too many options and he’s only just remembering how to choose.

He’s gone long enough that his mysterious intruder has had time to wash and dry his meagre wardrobe. He leans in to inhale the scent of clean clothes and there’s a lingering second scent of fresh snow, the kind that tamps down crisply underfoot.

When he finally sleeps, he dreams of little girls dressed in tutus and carrying rifles.

 

It happens again two weeks later. He’s drawn out by his own restlessness and inability to sleep more than two hours, a need to _move keep moving_ itching under his skin. He likes the city best in the earliest morning hours, when it’s just him and the man dropping off bundles of freshly printed newspapers outside shop doors. Sometimes the man nods at him, and James nods back. This time, he tosses a rolled-up newspaper to James. James takes it home and when he steps inside, his coffeemaker is on and there is a clean mug in the dish rack.

He reads the paper slowly, poring over each section carefully. He doesn’t remember when his birthday is, but when he reads the horoscope he pays special attention to Sagittarius. If pressed, he couldn’t begin to explain why. The coffee is strong and bitter, and he doesn’t remember buying it.

That night, the tutu-girls in his dream are wearing _ushankas_ and carrying crossbows.

 

His neighbours have gotten used to him and it scares him. He’s been here for three months, the longest he’s let himself be in any one city now. The elderly woman on the first floor asks him in for tea because he reminds her of her own long-dead son and he can’t think of a reason to say no. There is _cozonac_ with raisins, and the taste bursts in his mouth with memories of another raisin egg-bread. He mumbles his thanks as she presses a second loaf into his hands and it isn’t until he is climbing the stairs to his own apartment that it registers to him that he’d thanked her in Yiddish.

The window in his living room is open, the curtain wavering slightly in the breeze, and he smells that same lingering scent of fresh snow. There is also a faint odour of gun oil and when he checks his various hiding spots he finds that every one of his weapons have been thoroughly taken apart, cleaned, and reassembled. The intruder had even found the peashooter he keeps buried in the coffee tin on his counter.

Just to be safe, he breaks down and reassembles each weapon once more. He hums softly to himself, a half-remembered tune about raisins and almonds.

He doesn’t dream of ballerinas that night, but of a woman with curly brown hair waving her hands over flickering candles. It is the first time in months that he sleeps through the night.

 

It’s been another month when he wakes up to a warm aroma hanging in the air. He pokes suspiciously at the pot he finds simmering on the stove and cautiously removes the lid when he doesn’t hear any ticking sounds. The only explosion is the aromatic perfume that rises out of the pot, peppery herbs and the sweet scent of carrots. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply.

This is the first time his shadowy visitor has been in his apartment while he was home. They are either very stupid, or very, very good at what they do, to trust that he would not wake up while they crept around his kitchen.

He forces himself to eat slowly, to savour the familiar flavours of the soup. The first sip brings him the memory of a Brooklyn tenement, he sees a small boy helping the curly-haired woman from his dream as she chops onions, but as he eats, the memories blend and he sees himself, one arm gleaming in the dim light as he hunches over to light a gas stove. There is the faintest shadow of someone next to him, their face is hidden but he sees a shimmer of red hair hanging loosely around their shoulders. He closes his eyes, to shake the image, but it’s still there when he opens them, and when he lifts the spoon to his mouth again, he tastes fresh snow and warm blood.

 

Another two months go by and he’s starting to believe his visitor has moved on, which is why he is almost surprised when he comes home from the library and there is a portable radio on his coffee table that wasn’t there when he left that morning.

He ignores it for most of the afternoon, instead tries to focus on reading. He has a lot of catching up to do, and the reference librarians have finally stopped goggling at his questions and started recommending history books and the occasional novel. He’s trying to read about the fall of the Iron Curtain, and it’s hard not to think about the role he must have played. It’s not a pleasant thought.

He sets his books aside and turns the radio on. It is pre-set to an international news station. He listens to report after report pour in from witnesses to the damage in Lagos, the bomb in Vienna. He hears the name “Captain America” and is still. He hears the name “Black Widow” and the arm of the couch splinters under his clenched hand. He looks around at the apartment he’s just about succeeded at turning into a home. He’ll be sorry to leave it.

 

She is at the foot of his bed when he wakes from a restless sleep in the early hours of the morning. Just like in his vision, all he can see is a spill of red hair. His bedroom smells of fresh snow and gun oil and warm blood, and he knows, he’s always known, there is only one person who has ever smelled like that.

She steps into the sliver of lamplight streaming through the window and he sees her face. He stares at her face, as unaged as his own, hungrily takes in every detail he’d forgotten to remember. Her lips move, and he watches them as she speaks.

“Do you know who I am, James?” her voice is soft, so soft, it whispers like the rustle of tulle.

His reply is more of a sigh than a word, her name falling as naturally from his mouth as breathing.

_“Natalia”_.

 


End file.
